Critical Photo Essay Proposal- 10.21

“What Constitutes as writing in the Digital Era?”

I'm pretty curious about what has been able to count and discount as writing or rhetoric lately. A long time ago, I read an article that argued whether or not accounts like Twitter and Facebook helped or hindered one’s ability to write. I can’t for sure say which the writer argued for but I think they argued that sites like Twitter actually help improve one’s writing skills because they are limited to the amount of characters in the text box and thus, people are put in the situation where they have to be a little more creative with their expressions.

I Googled the word “writing” and came up with three different definitions (on just the word “writing”) and I found it interesting that the definitions themselves haven’t caught up with today’s modes of expression. What I will do is try to find more definitions or perspectives of what others’ think writing is and how it’s evolved over the years (but I hope that’s not too big a thing to look for) and try to create my own definition/answer to how writing should be defined/alter to better suit the world we live in today. I also want to look at discussions people have if they’ve thought about if there is a difference between writing a genre like an essay versus a genre like a text message or a Twitter update.

Or what stuff counts  as having been written? I’m sure some people in this world don’t think LOL, SMH, or AF is considered real writing. Perhaps because they have/make little sense unless you either already know the translation or look it up. I also hope to find stuff in the academic field, I’m not sure how I will find information- though I don’t doubt that there isn’t something out there- because I haven’t figured out how I want or need to phrase my keywords when searching them. I found that JSTOR has a student newspaper online, I found a relevant article titled Student Writing in the Digital Age and perhaps I will find more similar articles.

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